Linfield Football Club
Also written as Linfield.
The club
Linfield Football Club were founded in March 1886 as Linfield Athletic Club by workers at the Ulster Spinning Company's Linfield Mill in Belfast. The club is based in south Belfast and plays at Windsor Park, its home since 1905, a ground redeveloped and reopened in October 2016 with a capacity of 18,434; Windsor Park is also the home of the Northern Ireland national team, making it the largest football stadium in Northern Ireland. Linfield play in blue shirts with a white collar, blue shorts and white socks, and are known as the Blues.
The manager is David Healy, Northern Ireland's all-time record international goalscorer as a player, appointed on 14 October 2015. His predecessors include Warren Feeney, in charge from 2014 to 2015, and David Jeffrey, whose tenure from 1997 to 2014 brought 31 trophies, equalling the total won by Roy Coyle, manager from 1975 to 1990. The chairman is Roy McGivern.
Linfield are not to be confused with Glentoran Football Club, their fellow Belfast side and closest rival, covered under Head-to-head notes below.
Recent seasons
Linfield were NIFL Premiership champions in 2021/22, finishing on 83 points from 38 matches, 24 wins, 11 draws and 3 defeats, 67 goals for and 24 against. They were runners-up in 2022/23 with 77 points, and runners-up again in 2023/24 with 85 points from 26 wins, 7 draws and 5 defeats, 82 goals for and 40 against. They won the title again in 2024/25, also on 85 points, this time from 27 wins, 4 draws and 7 defeats, 69 goals for and 28 against. In 2025/26 they finished fourth with 66 points from 38 matches, 19 wins, 9 draws and 10 defeats, 61 goals for and 33 against, well behind champions Larne.
Honours and landmarks
Linfield have won the Irish/NIFL league title 57 times, more than twice as many as any other club and the most national championships won by any club in the world, and the Irish Cup 44 times, the second-highest total of any club anywhere. They have also won the domestic League Cup, now the BetMcLean Cup, 10 times, most recently in 2023/24, and the inaugural Setanta Cup in 2005. Linfield are the only club recorded as having won seven trophies in a single season, and have done so twice, in 1921/22 and 1961/62; they completed a domestic quadruple in 2005/06 and have won domestic doubles a world record 25 times. Their overall trophy count exceeds 116.
Linfield share, jointly with two other clubs, the world record for the longest continuous membership of a national league's top division, having played every season since the Irish League began in 1890.
Notable scorelines
Linfield beat Aris Bonnevoie of Luxembourg 9-4 on aggregate in the first round of the 1966/67 European Cup, their best European run, which ended in the quarter-finals with a 3-2 aggregate defeat to CSKA Red Flag. In the 2019/20 Champions League first qualifying round they lost 6-0 on aggregate to Rosenborg of Norway. Against Glentoran they have won 7-0 in the Irish League in 1891/92 and, in a more recent one-off, 6-0 in the group stage of the 2006 Setanta Sports Cup; the biggest win in the fixture's long history is Linfield's 8-0 victory on 21 November 1891.
European record
Linfield's first European match was in September 1959, a 2-1 home win over IFK Göteborg of Sweden in the 1959/60 European Cup, Jackie Milburn among the scorers. Their run to the last eight of the 1966/67 European Cup, beating Aris Bonnevoie 9-4 on aggregate before losing to CSKA Red Flag, remains their best European campaign. Recent notable runs include the 2013/14 Europa League, where they beat ÍF Fuglafjørður of the Faroe Islands 5-0 on aggregate, 2-0 away and 3-0 at home, and 2019/20, when Linfield became the first Irish League side to reach a Europa League play-off round before losing to Qarabağ of Azerbaijan. In 2022/23 they lost a Conference League qualification tie to FK RFS of Latvia. Linfield have qualified for European competition more than 60 times in all.
Linfield met SP La Fiorita of San Marino in the 2017/18 Champions League first qualifying round: a 0-0 draw in San Marino followed by a 1-0 win at Windsor Park sent Linfield through 1-0 on aggregate, the first competitive European draw of La Fiorita's history.
Head-to-head notes
Linfield's principal rivalry, known as the Big Two, is with Glentoran, based in east Belfast; the two clubs are entirely separate and should never be confused. Until Belfast Celtic withdrew from football in 1949 following sectarian violence, the Big Two rivalry referred to Linfield and Belfast Celtic, after which Glentoran took on the role. As of 2021/22 the two clubs had met 281 times since 1890: 126 wins for Linfield, 77 for Glentoran and 78 draws. Their Boxing Day fixture traditionally draws Northern Ireland's largest domestic attendance. Since 2009 the rivalry's grip on the title has loosened, with Cliftonville and Crusaders emerging as stronger challengers; the last season in which Linfield and Glentoran finished as champions and runners-up together was 2008/09.
Right now (2026/27)
David Healy remains manager. Having finished fourth in the NIFL Premiership in 2025/26 and won that season's BetMcLean Cup, Linfield entered the 2026/27 UEFA Conference League in the first qualifying round, drawn against Nõmme Kalju of Estonia. Kalju won the home leg 1-0 and the away leg at Windsor Park finished 2-2, sending Kalju through 3-2 on aggregate and eliminating Linfield. Exact dates were not established from the sources read here, nor was Linfield's league position in the 2026/27 NIFL Premiership.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linfield_F.C. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%9326_NIFL_Premiership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_UEFA_Conference_League_qualifying_phase_and_play-off_round https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nõmme_Kalju_FC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SP_La_Fiorita
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.